Latest News
Hindu fanatics raze Protestant church in southern India.
Jan 26 UCA News
An under-construction Protestant church in the southern Indian state of Telangana was demolished by a mob of radical Hindus on Jan. 20.
Gethsemane Prardana Mandiram (church) in Mahabubabad was attacked by a group of Hindu fanatics headed by a leader named Bura Venakanna, said Pastor Muhammad Afzal Paul.
“Local Christians believe that the main reason for the attack is that there are around 80 churches of different denominations in a radius of 10 kilometers, which the Bajrang Dal [a radical Hindu
group] could not accept,” Pastor Levi of the Power of Jesus Fellowship, a Protestant church, told UCA News.
“The local administration has stationed some police officers at the church attack site and it is under investigation. The church is very small with about 100 members...
Jailed Indian Jesuit pens letter on prisoners' plight.
Jan 25 UCA News
Detained elderly Indian Jesuit Stan Swamy has marked his 100 days in prison with a letter highlighting the cases of poor people languishing in jail who begin their trials without even knowing
their criminal charges.
In his letter to Jesuit colleagues, the 84-year-old priest also expressed gratitude for the "overwhelming" solidarity of his supporters as he completed 100 days in prison on Jan. 15.
Father Swamy has been detained in Taloja Central Prison in Mumbai, capital of Maharashtra state, since Oct. 9. The human rights activist priest is charged with sedition and having links with outlawed
Maoist rebels.
Along with Father Swamy, 15 other activists were arrested and jailed at different times for their alleged involvement in a violent incident in Bhima Koregaon on Jan. 1, 2018, in which one...
Shut down all churches in India's tribal areas, Hindu group demands.
Jan 15 UCA News
A right-wing Hindu group has demanded an immediate shutdown of all churches built in tribal areas of the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh and action against Christian priests and pastors
involved in alleged religious conversion.
However, church leaders denied the conversion allegations and termed the demands an attempt to terrorize and defame them by taking advantage of the newly enacted anti-conversion law in the
state.
Azad Prem Singh, a local leader of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) or World Hindu Council, said that in the past 70 years Christian missionaries had converted "gullible indigenous people into
Christianity and built churches specifically on protected tribal land."
"All the illegally built churches should be shut down immediately...